What should we be doing?

Heatwave and hose pipe bans - a real reminder segued between the news?

Raychel Sanner, Unsplash

Starting this week’s letter, the sun has gone, replaced by a menacing uniform, dark grey sky. More rain is forecast. Lots of it. A stark contrast from the Costa-Del-Sol weather, we’ve all been enjoying, or not, for weeks.

I’ve started asking people I meet on the golf course what their thoughts are on our climate? Hopefully, not in an annoying know-it-all sort of way, because I know very little. I’ve also refrained from irritating, when the sun is out in full force on balding pates, switching attention to my own survival, finding available shade and refreshment between swings.

I’m curious. The media, broadly speaking, seems to have accepted that change is upon us, which is unsurprisingly still at odds with parts of the current government, still clinging to flat earth society rhetoric, or relegating any importance and action to the next government in several more years of wasted time.

Reported news on this year’s heatwave has often referred briefly to macro level climate forces, delivered in a we’ve-known all along tone, and everyone has to get comfortable with longer, hotter spells.

Traditionally, we’ve invested heavily in this type of weather, seduced by cheap flights, quality hotels and romantic sunsets across southern Europe, even crossing the Med to North Africa for out of season heat. We’ve finally got what we want on our doorsteps, without needing to be stamped in and out as temporary foreigners with our European neighbours. Well we did ask for it on both counts.

Mrs H often reminds me how lucky I am. I assume she’s referring to the abundance of time I now have to think about climate change?

Questions need answers. How bad is it? How much worse is it going to get? What are we doing to stop it, are we doing enough? What can you and I do to solve the crisis? What crisis?

Disaster movie?

Is it a result of the recent global pandemic, a disaster movie played out for real, that I now feel global warming is creating another? Like the relentless spread of Covid across Europe, we can see this impending disaster in the distance too, a giant tsunami, raging havoc offshore. Yet as we stand and watch from the comfort of our home and fortunate lives, feet reluctant to turn and run, we notice birds have stopped singing, an eery quiet has descended. Yet we continue to do nothing, staring, not quite believing, at what is clearly unfolding in the distance. A gentle breeze starts to rustle the trees tops. It’s already too late.

Seriously?

Too much hyperbole? Maybe. But I’m amazed at the majority of people who seem deaf and blind to what is intensifying already. It’s dismissed selfishly as a future problem - I’ll be long gone before anything happens here. Or there’s recognition, followed by semantic debate about waiting for the right technology to arrive - electric is a waste of time, hydrogen is the answer or fusion?

The World Health Organisation estimates that climate change will cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year, between 2030-2050, because of malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.

Deaths which will occur because of rising sea levels, dry areas becoming deserts, serious storms, more frequent and intense heat waves and biodiversity loss.

Runaway global warming

How many more will die if the threat of runaway global warming becomes a reality? Less ice means less radiated heat is reflected back into space. As carbon content increases, the ability to absorb CO2 in oceans and soils begins to fall. Large areas of permafrost (tundra) which release CO2 and methane when thawing, do exactly that. Forests dry out, just as weather conditions are causing more fires. Aided by bark-beetle infestations, forests easily switch from carbon sinks to new carbon sources. More extreme temperatures further increases human energy consumption, in an attempt to stay warm or cool.

What’s the point?

A common response I get, is to do with the futility of the situation. What is the point in doing anything, until the big polluters like China, USA and India start to behave more responsibly?

Apart from it being an argument that kicks the can down the road, it’s not entirely true, as the chart above illustrates. There is also the Inflation Reduction Act in the US, allocating $369bn to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and invest in renewable energy. It is not surprisingly, badly flawed, but is still more significant in terms of investment, than anything happening in the UK. We could be doing so much more, starting with insulating the third of UK homes still without wall and loft insulation.

Make My Money Matter

I found this web site recently. It highlights the fact that the single biggest act we can all take is to know where our pension money goes and demand it be invested wisely, to help build a better future.

What caught my attention was the 21x challenge. Having a pension which is invested greenly, is more effective than going vegetarian, not flying or switching your energy provider.

They make it easy for visitors to select their pension fund from a long list and then send a scripted email, which asks the fund to explain what plans they have for reaching net zero and the halving of emissions this decade?

Church of England case study

One success story is how the C of E’s, £3.5 billion pension fund has made Shell link executive pay directly with carbon reduction targets.

Which begs the question as to why the C of E’s pension board hasn’t already sold any interest that it might have in the fossil fuel giant, following the example of the Baptists and United Reformed church? That is likely answered by the make-up of the board which includes several long serving, but presumably non god-fearing, ex-Shell employees. They get everywhere, even into the house of god.